Please Forget-Me-Not
by Ktkat9
Summary: It was just a stupid story his brother told him to get him to help with the garden. Forget-Me-Nots didn't actually hold memories, and destroying them didn't make those memories fade. It wasn't until he was older, though, that Yami found out just how much he wished it could have been true. Because, sometimes, you need help remembering. Especially when life tries to make you forget.


Yami glared. The sun was hot, but it had rained during the night, making the soil damp enough to seep into his gloves and soak his knees. He didn't want to be out here, but Atem said the garden needed to be weeded and the rain the previous night had loosened the soil enough to make it fairly easy.

"Big Brother, why can't we just let these grow?" Yami sat back and removed his gloves carefully. A thorn had pierced through his glove and into his finger.

"By this time next month, you'll see." Atem removed his own gloves and began to examine his brother's finger. "The yard will be beautiful. You'll love it."

Yami just snorted and pulled his gloves back on. He wasn't bleeding, and the sooner he got this done the sooner he could go find a friend to play with. Not only that, but he was mildly upset with his brother for his whole 'you'll see someday' response. Turning back to the patch he had been working on, he grabbed a handful of the assorted weeds and gave a sharp tug, uprooting them all along with a sizeable clump of dirt. As he started to shake the dirt from the roots, though, Atem's larger hand reached out and stilled his.

"Do you know what this is?" He pointed to a tiny, unimpressive, blue flower, now bent in half because of it's unceremonious handling. The flower itself had maybe five petals and wasn't even as big as a one yen piece.

"... A weed?" Yami tried. He knew he didn't remember all of the plants they had in their garden, but he didn't think any of them had been this tiny.

His brother chuckled. "I guess to some. It's called a Forget-Me-Not."

Yami raised an eyebrow. If Atem was trying to get him interested in kneeling in the wet dirt under the hot sun pulling weeds trying to guess which spiders are poisonous, it wasn't working. "That's a weird name for a weed."

"I guess it is a little weird. But there's a reason it's called that." Atem sat back and took a quick swig of his water bottle. "They're your memories. Each flower is a different memory, which is why they grow in patches. And you must never pull them, because the memory only lives as long as the flower."

Yami stared at the flower. It wasn't unusual for his brother to have some mysterious story about the powers of whatever mundane item had decided to capture his attention at the moment, but _weeds_ controlling _memories_? The next time he looked at his brother, he had gone back to weeding. Just to prove to himself it wasn't true, (and, maybe, to spite his know-it-all brother) he grabbed a handful of the small, blue, flowers and chucked them into his bucket.

Yyyyy Ten Years Later Yyyyyy

"Atem, are you awake?" Yami lowered himself to sit next to his brother's still form. He held a bowl of soup in his hands, which he placed on the bedside table beside a now-cooled mug of tea.

Atem let out a soft grunt and opened his eyes. Yami tried not to look. He knew being strong was what Atem needed right now, but he couldn't bear to see him like this. His eyes, once vibrant and alive, were now dull and clouded. He had gradually lost his tan, the illness even keeping him out of his beloved garden, and his bones poked through his skin, almost tauntingly. His own body knew it was dying, but Atem's spirit remained.

"How was work?" He whispered hoarsely.

Yami turned back in his direction, but still couldn't look directly at him. "It was good. Joey and Tea got in a fight with the time stickers again. Are you hungry for dinner?"

Atem didn't respond. Yami folded and unfolded the napkins he had brought in, trying to discreetly swallow the lump in his throat. His brother had raised him when their parents had died. He had always been the strongest, bravest person Yami had ever known. The day that the doctor had walked them into a sterile, white room to talk to them about dark spots on x-rays, had been the worst day of Yami's life. His brother was dying. But as if that wasn't bad enough, he had to watch him slowly wither away. Piece by piece he had lost his ability to take care of Yami, and was now hardly able to care for himself.

"Yami." The tone was one Yami knew. His brother had something important to say, and needed to know he was listening. The voice, however, was soft and raspy. Gritting his teeth slightly, Yami sighed and looked up, hands still pretending that the napkin was important. Atem's face was drawn up in worry, and his eyes locked with Yami's. This was a look Yami had only seen once or twice before in his life, and one of those times was right before he had told them they were now alone in the world; desperation. "I need you to promise me something."

"Atem, no. You're going to get better-," Just the force of vocalizing the lie they both knew was enough to blur Yami's vision. The doctors themselves had told them that a large part of the treatment had to do with positive thinking. Atem had long passed the point of no hope, but Yami couldn't admit that. He couldn't admit that because as soon as he did he would have to face the fact that he was soon approaching a part of his life that didn't involve his brother.

Atem wouldn't be his best man like he had always promised, or babysit his nieces and nephews. He wouldn't cheer for him when he graduated from college or be around to offer cryptic advice. There would be no more of his guidance or reassurances, nobody whose high scores he could beat, or…

Yami felt arms encircle him, pulling him into a frail, bony chest. He hadn't realized he had begun crying, but now that he had started he found that he couldn't stop. Atem just held him, letting him shake and sob. Yami hugged him, never wanting to let go, but being careful not to squeeze too hard.

"We both know that's a load of horseshit." Atem hardly ever cursed, but Yami wasn't complaining. "I'm not going to be around forever. I know that, and I know you know that. So please, just promise me one thing."

Yami didn't pull away, still not able to look directly at the frail skeleton his once-powerful brother had become, choosing instead to bury his face in his shoulder and nod.

"Forget."

At this, Yami sat back in surprise, confusion plastered to his face.

"Don't remember me like this, please. Remember me like I used to be, before… this happened. I don't care how other people remember me, just so long as _you_ look back on me as your big brother, and not someone who wasn't even strong enough to brew himself a cup of tea."

"I promise." Yami whispered thickly, trying to rub the last of the tears out of his eyes. "I-I promise."

Later that night, after Atem had fallen back to sleep, Yami unwound the hose and began watering the front garden. His brother had kept it maintained for years as his pride and joy, and Yami had taken over the job, needing some sense of stability with all the changes that had been going on in his life.

As he passed the water over a bush outside their living room window, though, he noticed something. It wasn't the first time he had seen it, the patch of blue that managed to get a little bigger each year, but it was the first time he had paid it any mind.

" _They're your memories."_

Yami dropped the hose, letting the water pool in the middle of the lawn.

" _Each memory is a different flower, which is why they grow in patches."_

He dropped to his knees, registering but not caring that the ground was soaking.

" _And you must never pull them,"_

Yami grabbed fistful after fistful of the flowers, not even attempting to hold the tears in. Each handful he chucked into the yard behind him, as if the distance would help him forget. That stupid story Atem had told him as a child was now running on a loop through his head, over and over again. _Flowers_ kept memories?! It didn't make an ounce of sense, but it was still Atem. It was so much like so many other stories Atem had told him, that it just _had_ to be true, if only for this brief moment of insane desperation.

Not even able to see through the tears now streaming down his face, Yami imagined a memory attached to each handful as he tore them from the ground. Entering the kitchen to find his brother unconscious on the floor, uprooted. Doctors telling him they needed to do more tests. And then more tests. And then more, and no, they couldn't say what they were testing for because they didn't want either of them to worry until they had something definitive, thrown further than the rest. Atem, always trying to make it seem like he was fine, and nothing was wrong, thrown so far his arm hurt.

Breathing heavily and still sobbing, Yami pushed himself up so that he was seated, back against his porch. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them tight. He didn't care if his neighbors saw him. Didn't care that he was now soaking wet from the hose. He just cared that, for the moment, he felt a little better.

" _because the memory only lives as long as the flower,"_

Yyyyy Ten Years Later Yyyyy

"Daddy!" Yami looked up from his book at the excited call. His young son, Yugi, ran up to him. The pair had spent the day running errands, and were now at the park.

"What's that you've got there?" Yami marked his page and set his book aside to pick up his son.

Yugi lifted his hands to hand his father a slightly crushed bouquet of flowers he had found among the play equipment. "For you. It's pretty."

"It sure is. Thank you, Yugi." As he was taking his gift, his eyes fell on a familiar flower, mostly hidden behind the other, larger, flowers. Swallowing, he picked it out and held it up. Yugi's grip had been so tight when he had pulled it that the stem was bent and the petals were bruised, but he remembered clearly what it was. He remembered gardening with his brother and finding it, already upset about his wasted day and injured finger. He remembered watering the tiny, growing sea of blue as he grew up. He remembered destroying the patch as Atem lay just inside, dying.

"Daddy? Do you not like it?" Yugi's voice brought him back to present times.

"I-I love it, Yugi. Tell me, do you know what this is?" He held out the Forget-Me-Not for Yugi to see and saw the look of concentration on the four-year-old's face.

"Is it a daisy?" He finally guessed.

"No. It's a magical flower. The memories of people you love are stored in them, so as long as these flowers are around, you'll remember those who are most important to you. It's called a Forget-Me-Not."

"How do you know that?" Yugi settled onto his father's lap and reached out a hand to touch the flower.

Yami paused a moment before answering. "Your uncle Atem told me, way back when I was just a few years older than you. He said that the memories only live as long as the flower, and to never destroy them, because if you did, the memory would fade." Breaking off before he delved too far into the memory of his brother, Yami just sat and held his son close.

"Daddy, will you ever forget me?" Yugi asked, touching the flower again.

Shocked, Yami looked down. "Of course not. What makes you say that?"

"I hurt a Forgetting-Not flower."

"Oh, Yugi. It's just a story, okay? And how could I ever forget about you?" He chuckled, trying to cheer him up, but Yugi refused to even smile.

"I heard you telling Mommy that you were having trouble remembering uncle Atem."

The grin fell off Yami's face as if it had never been there. He sighed. Parenting was just one of the challenges he could have really used advice and guidance in. "Yugi, you'll understand someday, but there was a lot of things that happened in my and uncle Atem's lives that makes it hard to remember who he really was. But I can promise you right now that will _never_ forget you. Not ever."

"Not even if you live a thousand-hundred years?" Yugi looked up at him, purple eyes wide. "Promise?"

"I pinky-promise you that I won't ever forget you, even if I live a thousand-million years." Yami smiled and held out his pinky.

Yugi wrapped his small finger around his father's much larger one and squeezed. "If I put the Forgetting-Not flower in the ground, will it be okay?" He asked.

"I'll tell you what." Yami opened his book to a random page and laid the small, blue flower gently between the pages. "If we do this, them the memory is always with us. How about that?"

"Okay!" Yugi jumped down and grabbed Yami's hand. "Can we go show Mommy?"

Yami laughed and followed Yugi out of the park gates. "Of course we can." The two made their way home, the tiny, unimpressive, blue flower tucked safely away in a book under Yami's arm. He just knew Atem would have had something to say about the stains on the pages, but he didn't care. Not at the moment. This happy memory was important to hang onto.

Yyyyy

Suggested by HyperMint

This story was harder to write than my usual stories, mainly because I modeled Atem after someone I lost in a similar way. With Atem's never-quit attitude, though, it was hard not to see the similarities. Please let me know what you thought! Review! :3


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